Lesson Two

After learning the starting point for playing the xylophone yesterday, in today’s lesson we will focus on the lengths of different types of notes and the rhythm of music.  When playing music, playing the correct notes is equally important as holding the notes down for the correct length of time in order to hear the melody of the song. 

The most common type of note is called crotchet. It is held down for one second. It looks like this: 

The second most common type of a minim note. It is held for two seconds and looks like this:

The two longest notes that we have in music are a dotted minim and a semibreve. The dotted minim is held down for three seconds and the semibreve is held down for the entire bar of music. 

Dotted minim:

Semibreve: 

There are also quavers that are quicker half notes often seen in music.Two of them together make up one beat. They look like this:

Let’s try clapping this rhythm to practice time keeping for different notes: 

Listen to my example of the clapping here:

Insert an audio of the clapping exercise. 

In the previous lesson, we learnt the first keys on the xylophone that are the starting point for any songs. Today we will learn the next keys. In the right hand we are looking at F and G, which are located to the right of E in the treble clef. You can see the first five notes in the treble clef here:

Try playing the five keys on the xylophone and memorise how the notes are located on the stave lines (the long line for notes).

The notes that are below the middle C are written on additional short lines called ledger lines. See the picture below to show how they look when written down. 

Now let’s play a song called ‘Chimes’. Here are the sheet music for it:

This week, practice clapping the rhythm to different songs and playing the new song on the xylophone focusing on correct notes and rhythm. Enjoy!